Pages

Sunday, July 31, 2011

I wish I was artistic. I really do. Unfortunately I've been cursed with, as per the Captain Edmund Blackadder quote, "...all the artistic talent of a cluster of colour-blind hedgehogs..... in a bag". I can do the odd half decent pic once in a blue moon (the dancer in the captains quarters in a previous blog turned out better than I expected but that was more luck than talent) but generally I'm not the "arty" type. I'd love to do videos. I've even had a go, but they are not up to scratch. So I am relegated to watching Eve videos on YouTube and muttering "I wish I could do that!".

The Eve Online community at large has this amazing ability to create Eve related "art" which is uncommon compared to other games. Why does Eve have this when many other games don't. I've run a few picture competitions in corp in the past. One category for serious "artistic" Eve screenshots/pictures and one for funny Eve pictures. Obviously the funny category was the most popular and we got some truly amazing entries. Many were just slightly edited Eve shots with a caption referring to an in-corp joke (like the 8-year veteran CEO who kept getting podded as he didn't know about the "warp to 0" button in the top right and was always busy right clicking the context menu to try and warp out) and some were lovingly crafted Fail/demotivational/your doing it wrong style master-pieces.

Before I show some of my favorite videos I'd like to throw some ideas out there to why we have so many people in the Eve community who can make these things.

The Eve Online Learning Curve of DOOM - Eve is not (or was not) an easy game to get into. CCP have been putting a lot of time and effort into making the "New Player Experience" better. However, I found it, and I'm sure many others found it, to be a challenging game to get into (then again that was a few years ago, I hope it's better now). I remember my first experiences of PvP. I was in my pod more than a combat ship! Eve is also a harsh gaming world where your hard work can be lost in an instant. People who can stick at this game and get their head around the mechanics obviously can use the same attributes in other areas of their life. Eve takes work and a little dedication to get into and art definitely requires the same attributes.

Maturity - I'm talking age here, not actually maturity. I mean log onto voice comms for Shadows of the Federation sometimes and you'd think we're a bunch of teenagers, not mostly a collection of late 20's and 30-something people many with families! It is said the human male gets to the age of twelve and suddenly they are interested in cars and boobies and basically don't move on from there. However the average physical age in Eve is 31. We oldies tend to have attention spans superior to your average cat.... or teenage gamer!

Sci-Fi Geeks - Come on, everyone who plays Eve has a little Sci-Fi geek inside them. And we Sci-Fi geeks can be creative... with Sci-Fi obviously! When you think of fan fiction, fan art and the like are you thinking about games like Call of Duty? No? Battlefield: Bad Company 2? Portal? Minecraft? Civilisation V? No, no, no and no. You're either thinking sci-fi with aliens and spaceships or fantasy with wizards and dragons etc.

Eve Online as a Hobby - Generally a lot of players see Eve more than just a computer game. Its a hobby, its an addiction, its more than just gaming. For a start you are reading this Eve blog! I'm writing it. This weekend there are people in Las Vega's attending a mini-fanfest. Yes, Eve is so much more than just a run-of-the-mill computer game.

Anyway, here are a few of my favourite Eve Online videos which make me smile whilst also muttering "I wish I could do that..."

This is War.
I love this song so any video that uses it gets my vote! The author has taken CCP promo video extracts and edited them together to the tune from 30 Seconds from Mars. The finished article looks and sounds great....

I love New Eden.
If anyone has Sky TV in the UK you must have seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC1yLD7R0ZU advert for the Discovery Channel (I read on Wikipedia it was a worldwide campaign so you may have seen it elsewere). It was on every 10 minutes before I left the UK and was driving me completely and utterly "bum-de-ar-da"! The Test Alliance parody always makes me smile :)

CCP - HTFU
So CCP got some flak about making a rap video rather than fixing bugs. Seriously guys, erm, HTFU? Can you ever imagine Blizzard doing one of these? Warning - not safe for work or little ones!

CCP - The Butterfly Effect
OK, so we all know this has never happened in game and is one of those "Well... it could.... technically......" but I feel it's a great advert for the game and gives people who don't play Eve a perspective of how big this game actually is. I use it when chatting to people who have never heard of Eve to give them a very quick introduction. The latest one from CCP, I Was There, is also good, but doesn't portray the sheer vastness of the game like this one does. Oh and the reference to chaos theory makes it all the more geeky ;)

Clear Skies I, II and III
What can I say. Absolutely fantastic! A film set in the Eve universe using the Eve-O client for the in-space bits and the Halflife Engine to do the "in person" bits with the two merging in places using some blue-screen tech. The main website is www.clearskiesthemovie.com and the video linked below is the trailer for part III. OK it's not a Hollywood blockbuster, but the fact that a guy was able to make this series at home is mind boggling. Download the HD version of III and watch it on a 42" HDTV. I did, much to the annoyance of the wife! And remember.... IT'S HOTDROP O'Clooooooooooooooooooock!

Any of the Eve "Downfall" Parodies.
In case you haven't seen it, I haven't, "Downfall" is a movie about the end of World War II. There is a scene where the German leadership are in the bunker and Hitler learns that, well, he's fracked. And thus starts a quality emo-rage in German. There have been many parodies of this, just simply adding subtitles, from Usan Bolt breaking the 100m record to the Eve Online speed nerf. Oh and I've also got to add another more recent one. This is obviously from the same movie but a different scene. "CCP" try to batphone in another DoS attack to stop the "NeX/P2W/monocle riots". Warning - Probably only funny if you don't speak German. Also subtitles are a bit mature with some Effin and Jeffin.

SoTF Recruitment 2011
Made by the fair hand of our very own Eelis Kiy. I think one of our corpies summed it up best... She captured SoTF in a nutshell. Drink and explosions!

Friday, July 29, 2011

Back when we were in it, we found that spying and meta-gaming in faction war was rife. In fact I'm convinced that in the militia's there are more spy alts on some times than actually true militia members. Of course a spy in your corp during faction war is a PITA. Whatever fleet you have out, they'll be able to counter it if they know your ship types, tactics and any backup plan. We've had spies in our fleet whilst we've had spies in their fleet. It just becomes like something out of the Pink Panther!

However we are now out of faction war and just shooting anything that moves. So for the the first time that I can remember, Shadows of the Federation has opened recruitment.

Having just celebrated our 3rd Birthday and recently published as the 9th top EVE PVP corporation according to EON magazine (from December 2010 to Feburary 2011) SoTF has opened its doors to look for potential new recruits to join in the fun/madness with us.

We are looking at potential corps to join the alliance as well as taking on new members into the SoTF fold.

And now a little about us -

We recently formed our own alliance “Drunk ‘n’ Disorderly” and we have very few blues which means lots of targets, we currently reside in the Kamela area of space which is a hotbed of pirate / FW activity.

What are we looking for? Well how to sum that up in a short paragraph is going to be difficult. We've always used the term "Shadowy" within corp to describe our members. However, outside of corp that will mean F all to most people.

The typical "Shadowy" person is a social animal. They tend not to be hard-core gamers, all about the win, who take their serious internet spaceships REALLY, REALLY seriously. They want to log on, shoot some people in the face, have a laugh and joke whilst doing it with a great bunch of people and log off. No CTA's, no PoS bashing, no alarm-clock ops. The organised and advertised Corp events are usually PvP roams which would be great if you can make it, but if you've got a hot date not a problem. Give her one from all of us! Photo's on the forum an added bonus!

Topics of conversation during roams tend to be R rated and generally WTF? (However as soon as "Check-check" or "Battle comms" is heard you are expected to shut up as it's fight time!). Drinking is a sport in SoTF and the drunken lolz fleets are some of the best fun we have.

SoTF has an older-player base. I don't think we've got any teenagers and generally late-20's to mid-30's is the age range of the vast majority of our player-base, we have pilots ranging from 10 mil sp upto 120 mil sp players.

If your a super serious eleventy million sp Eve player who goes emo and screams on comms if someone makes a mistake in fleet. Sorry, tbh you'll hate it.

Only got 20m SP's but fly something useful (T2 fitted - logi, recons, BC, HAC, BS are our usual staple) or are a good scout etc? Do your mates decribe you as a cross between Barny Gumble and Glen Quagmire? You'll fit in fantasitcally well.

If you're looking for a fun, no pressure, Mainly EU TZ, PvP corp, contact either the CEO (me!) Gallactica or Drackarn for further discussion.

Has good PvP experience especially in fleets (i.e. knows what to do in a fleet roam/camp and knows FC commands etc)

10mil Skillpoint minimum requirements,

Moderately active (online at least three times a week with RL exceptions of course)

Able to use voice comms and speak in English

18 years or older (our conversations can sometimes be a little on the 'mature' side)

Any timezone (we're mostly Euro but have people from everywhere)

Outgoing players, no anti-socials

Dont have a problem being -10, we are pirates

Please note that your full API will be required upon applying. You can cycle the key once you are either accepted or rejected, but we MUST have your full API for a thorough check. This is none negotiable. If you are not prepared to do this, please do not apply.

......PRESS RELEASE ENDS.......

So there you go. If you are looking for a drunken bunch of pirates for care-free PvP drop Gallactica or myself a line in-game and we'll have a chat.

Oh I forgot! That should have been on the "What we offer" list on the post. Not only do we have a Vent server, but WHEN Eelis comes back to game we'll have her sultry tones back on there. You can check them out on this podcast!

Anyway back to the recruitment poster! He didn't want THAT photo of him on the Eve Online forums. However he said I was OK to post it on my blog which makes a lot of sense. Gall, you do know this is a public blog visited by Eve players don't you?

And yes, that really is our great and glorious CEO, Gallactica, in the bottom panel! The mind just boggles!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The good people at Uppers N Downers are a bit busy making boosters to supply the yearning masses of New Eden. Hopefully "Boosters - Part 2" will be up at the weekend. In the mean time..... I jumped slap bang into a gate-camp a couple of days ago whilst soloing in my Hurricane. I'm sure everyone who has played Eve has had a "Oh Bugger!" moment like that. But what would it be like through the eyes of the character.....

"Well that's a bit of a shit!" thought Drackarn.

He'd just jumped through the stargate and could see half a dozen battlecruisers plus interceptor support set around the gate. As a outlawed pirate he doubted they'd hesitate for a micro-second before attacking him. The cloaking field from the stargate gave him a limited time to assess the situation.

Fight? No chance. Totally outnumbered and outgunned.

Suicide it? Nothing really small enough to destroy before they would destroy me. Might get that interceptor if lucky, but 720mm howitzers are not designed for hitting small, manoeuvrable ships.

Tank it and call for support? No time. The cloak would be down soon and it would take five minutes for anyone to get here. He was on his own. His tank couldn't stand up to that gangs fire power for more than 20-30 seconds.

Run? Drackarn looked at any celestial that his warp drive could lock onto without too much manoeuvring. There was a planet ahead, but it was a good few degrees off his current alignment. His ship would need time to align and the chances are someone would be able to lock him and engage him with a warp disrupter.

Burn back to the gate? An option, but an obvious manoeuvre. They'd probably hold some ships from agressing and jump them through to catch him the other side of the gate. However, if they all did agress....

Time was almost up. His cloak would end in a few seconds. His decision would literally be life or death to the hundreds of men and women aboard his ship.

Just before the cloak faded, Drackarn selected the planet in front and willed his ship to warp. His cloak dropped and he instantly saw all the surrounding ships targeting him. Yellow threat indicators where everywhere. His velocity was picking up as his warpdrive spun up, he was nearly aligned and then at that point his ship would warp. Suddenly his speed rapidly decreased, one of the ships had managed to lock him and get a warp distributor on him. The gravaton beam had hit the warp core and there was no way he'd be able to warp off now.

His shields started dropping at the same time as the rest of the fleet opened fire.

"Only one thing for it, I got a need for speed!"

Drackarn willed his battlecruiser back around towards the startgate and activated his microwarp drive. His velocity shot up as he started to cover the 12km back to the gate. At 2.5km he could jump. He was approaching 1200m/s. 8 or 9 long seconds of travel under relentless firepower. He disabled the thermal cut-offs to his MWD and shield modules. They'd take some damage being overloaded like that, but not as much if the damn ship blew up!

Drackarn's body was serene, floating in the hydrostatic pod. His calm body was in stark contrast to the rest of the ship. In gunnery people held onto bulkheads as the ship lurched under heavy fire. The sirens and alarms blaring out that the ship was under attack made if difficult to hear. Down in engineering it was chaos. Smoke filled the air as the modules were overloaded and the crew desperately tied to squeeze every bit of extra power to the shields that they could. The warp core hissed and spat behind it's shielding as the enemy gravton beam disrupted it. Power conduits were blowing out due to the damage from the attackers and the overloading of the shields. Several engineers had been overcome by the smoke and had collapsed on the floor unconscious.

Suddenly the ship lurched and the speed dropped again. Someone had got him with a warp scrambler and the MWD had gone offline. 5km. The ship then slowed even more, checking the threats engaging him Drackarn saw one ship had activated a stasis webbifer. The gravity weapon was substantially slowing his ship. Less than 3km. So close yet now crawling. The low shield alarm was sounding. His battlecruiser didn't have very much armour, it was fitted with shield reinforcement modules not additional armour plates. He'd not last long after the shields died.

Drackarn reassessed the attacking fleet, it looked like he might get into jump range. Were they all agressed? Stargates systems would not let anyone jump who had activated aggressive modules in the last 60 seconds. Providing they hadn't already had someone jump back through to set up on the other side of the gate and they were all agressed he could actually make it. Another check of the enemy fleet. A yellow flashing box on an Amarrian Interceptor stood out. The pilot had not agressed. He was waiting to see if Drackarn would go down in this system and he could get a final shot in to officially record his share of the pirate kill, or if Drackarn jumped, he'd jump with him and do what interceptor ships are designed for. Snagging and holding other ships until the fleet catches up.

Drackarn's armour was failing. A few more seconds and the ship would be lost, he was in jump range. He held off activating the gate. Hoping the interceptor would think he was going down and fire upon him.

The low armour alarm went off. Drackarn had no choice. And activated the stargate. His battlecruiser vanished into the artificial wormhole.

There was no time for assessments, no time to think. The interceptor must have followed him and if he didn't get away immediately he'd have to fight the interceptor and kill it before their fleet was able to jump through. However, his 720mm artillery cannons were not designed to hit something as small or as fast as an interceptor. He need either to get away fast or he'd need to be one lucky son-of-a-bitch and get a fluke hit on the interceptor if it grabbed him.

When jumping through stargates, it takes time for the ship systems to re-engage properly. That is why all gates provide a short-duration cloaking field. To give anyone using them a chance to recover from the jump. The cloak lasts 30 seconds but the ship recovery time can take anything from 1 second to over 20 seconds.

Drackarn smiled for the first time in a while as his systems came online almost instantly after the jump. He saw a planet in a good alignment and hit warp. His lumbering battlecruiser started aligning and spinning up the warp drive. The interceptor decloaked. He was in range to tackle Drackarn. He started yellow boxing but Drackarn's battlecruiser slipped into warp before the interceptor could achieve a target lock.

At last some good news, but things were not over yet. He was heading to a planet and unless the interceptor pilot was blind he'd follow. Interceptors warped faster than battlecruisers and also aligned much faster, so even though Drackarn had entered warp first, that interceptor would be close behind if not overtaking him. A quick sweep on the ships directional scanner showed that he was indeed following. Now all Drackarn needed was a little bit of luck. Did the interceptor warp directly to the planet, or did he select some range.

The warp tunnel collapsed and the planet loomed in front of Drackarn. He immediately selected a station and engaged warp. For the forth time since this began the battlecruiser started is painfully slow alignment. The interceptor appeared on Drackarn's overview. He was here..... 100km away and much nearer to the planet! Drackarn had set his warp drive to take him 100km from the planets warp in point. The interceptor pilot had assumed he'd gone to zero.

Trailing smoke and fire from the damaged sections of the ship, Drackarn's battlecruiser slipped into warp and docked in the safety of the station hanger.

"I need a drink!" thought Drackarn as his docking request was accepted.

Monday, July 25, 2011

I've recently got into using boosters since I threw the law book out of the airlock and became a ebil piwat. So I thought I write a quick mini guide and ask some shady people about booster production and some of the interesting things that might be on the horizon from reading the CSM minutes. First a quick guide for those like me who have spent years of Eve without using boosters and never really looked into them.

Basically, boosters are drugs a capsuleer can take that boost certain abilities of your ship such as active tanking or turret tracking. There are eight types of booster out there and each come in four different strengths. To use a booster all you need to do is open your cargo hold.... you did put them in your ship before you undocked right? Right-click and select consume. The buff, any debuff and their countdowns (they last 30 minutes) can be found in the "Augmentations" section of your character sheet.

Gall what are you doing with a teapot? Oh, sorry Miss. Thought you were my CEO

There are four stengths of each booster. Synth 3%, Standard 20%, Improved 25% and Strong 30%. These are rough numbers as different boosters have different strengths, for example strong drop is up at 37.5% and stong X-Instinct is only 15%, but give you a rough idea of the differences between them.

Also worth noting that Synth is the the only strength of booster legal in hi-sec. If you are caught by the NPC's in 0.5 or higher sec with them in your cargo hold you'll get a fine, standings hit and have the boosters confiscated. You don't get caught having them in your "bodily system" already. So drugged up pilots - OK, drugs in the spaceships cargo hold - not OK. Synth is also the only one which has no chance of any side-effects.

Whoa! What? Side-effects??? Yup, standards and the stronger boosters have a percentage chance of a side effect. Take the Blue Pill for instance, my favourite. There is a 20% chance that when using it you'll get a side effect. That could be one, some, or if you are really unlucky, all of the following -20% to Shield capacity, -20% to Turret optimal range, -20% to missile explosion velocity and -20% to capacitor capacity. You still get your positive effect, you just also get the negative effects too. Each booster has it's own side-effects so Crash will have different debuffs to Blue Pill.

Booster Slots

There are three booster "slots" for your character and you can have three boosters in effect at the same time. However there are groups which restrict which ones you can have going at the same time.

The first four in the list at the top are clearly defensive in nature and you can only have one in effect at each time.

The next three are turret buffers, again you can only have one at a time

The last one is for missiles and takes it's own slot.

Skill Requirements

You need biology and science to use boosters. Which is fine if you stick to Synths. If you are using standard or improved you really need to train Neurotoxin Recovery and Nanite Control. The first reduces the chance you'll get a side-effect and the second will reduce the percentage amount "debuffs you". I have both trained to 4 so I have a 20% less chance of getting a side-effect and if I do get one the debuff is 20% less.

That's it basically. There are more complete guides out there. I just wanted to write this short one for people who don't use them currently. They can be VERY helpful!

Part 2 coming soon.....

Which leads nicely onto part 2 where I chat with booster production corp "Uppers N Downers" about boosters and will removing the NPC customs officials on gates and getting players to enforce the law in hi-sec really work?

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Summer is traditionally a quiet time for Shadows. Whilst us out here in the Middle East hide indoors from the blistering heat, the European members are out having BBQ's, lounging in beer gardens, going on holiday and generally doing other stuff that playing Eve Online. Also at this usually quiet time of the year there has been a few other issues relating to people logging on. We've got some members on Incarna related emo-rage-breaks. To be honest you cannot blame them especially when you are not ISK rich and you are losing ships to the "Black Screen of Nothingness" or the "Warp! Warp!!!!! WARP FFS!!!!!" issues. There are also the hardware issues, the lack of ship spinning (I am assured by some this is a reason for not logging on) and other things that have just arsed people off about the game. Also at a corp level, our decision to go -10 flashy pie has also had an impact on some of our players. But the main reason I think is that our army of pasty white geeks are emerging from their normal habitats and venturing into the sun to have fun and go on holiday!

However there were a few of us about last night so we jumped into Nano-BC, HACs and Recons and went for a mooch. Our fleet of 10 set off from Kamela and decided to visit our old stomping ground of Black Rise again. Same route we took last Friday with Tekitha's birthday roam.

First action we found was a BS sat on a station. I was asked to warp in at range and stick a few rounds into him and see what he did. He got a dozen of his mates to undock. Geddons, Ravens, a Drake. So we moved on.

Some how the conversation on Vent got onto vasectomy. No idea how that happened! A couple of the Shadow's have been "deactivated" and why that is a good topic of conversation I have no idea!!!

We land on the Schoorasana gate, looks like we missed a big fight. Plenty of wrecks and abandoned drones. Nothing to shoot though.

We pass through Ladistier.... and of course someone has to mention "who always pays his debts" (which is usually me). Yes it's Lannister not Ladistier but as that system is about 20 jumps from home, so whenever we get there we are usually drunk enough for it not to matter that much! Anyway that leads onto some Game of Thrones banter. Good series that. Glen Quagmire would approve. Giggity!

We find a bunch of T3's in OMS but when probbed down we find them all sat in two different PoS's.

On to Kedama and we find a Drake on Tama gate, jumps into Tama and docks after being bashed. Nothing mush about and it's getting late so we head back.

I DC due to a BSoD and the others snag a Drake on a gate. I log in and catch up with the fleet and find someone called Faye Valintein was not a happy bunny. Moaning in local about their dead Drake.

Unfortunatly one of our guys in a HAC didn't quite make it off the gate in time and the gate guns take him down. Again for a second week running our only loss of the night is to NPC's! When asked if the Vaga loss was worth the Drake kill our CEO responded diplomatically....

Again, another 50 jump roam and no sign of any other fleet other than those BS we encountered earlier on. This is EU prime-time and all we're finding is singles to gank. I know it's summer but still.......

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

"Sweat baby, sweat baby, sex is a Texas drought, me and you do the kind of stuff that only Prince would sing about, so put your hands down my pants and I'll bet you'll feel nuts..."

- The Bloodhound Gang, The Bad Touch.

Do you ever pay any real attention to those pop-up style adverts you sometimes get when logging into Eve Online? Usually for Eon Magazine or some offer in the Eve Online store? "This Eve Related Promotion will only Display Once". Cannot say I pay a lot of attention, the reason I'm on the log in screen is that I want to log into Eve and fly some spaceships... NOW! However, a recent advert for the Noble Exchange aka NeX Store aka Nob Shop caught my eye. Why? It was a picture of a female toon laying on her front with her legs bent back. The picture was shot down her back showing the back of the head but focusing on the skirt and boots she was wearing. Two of my favorite things, Eve Online and a good pair of legs in high-heeled FMB's (F*** me boots). OK I accept it was just pixels, but in the words of Dave Lister from Red Dwarf "Yeah, but WHAT pixels". I may have given the advert a small mental "Giggity" and went on to playing important internet spaceships. The advert in question is below for either your viewing pleasure....

.... or for you to start to moan about CCP being sexist. What? Yes that was the reaction on the Eve-O forums from some of the community. Not sure if it just wasn't some humungous troll but there were some who were complaining CCP was being sexist. Now stangely enough being a 35 year-old red blooded male, I don't agree. Rule number 1 in advertising. Sex sells. Turn on MTV, let me know if you find a pop music video with a really fat and ugly artist, male or female. Can only beautiful people sing well? Of course not, but sex sells. And that thread got me thinking, and if you've read my previous posts whenever I get thinking a blog appears!

"I don't find anything in games offensive in a sexist way tbh - when you've spent 10 years surrounded by men who fawn all over you the second they realise you have boobies and don't look like the back end of a bus - combined with spending all your time in games where the women have ridiculously unrealistic figures and outfits - well you just accept it all as "make-believe" rather than anything to be offended by. Imo! (PS my sister brought me a Lara Croft action figure for my birthday one year lol)"

So what about sex in Eve Online? It is already there, if you look closely, but is more coming?

Go to the official Eve Online Wiki and look up Gallente. The first picture you get is a thin woman with long flowing black hair wearing very little and her modesty is vaguely protected by what can be only described as two over-sized Janet Jackson nipple rings from THAT superbowl (no I'm not American or watch their football but that incident a few years ago was very funny to the rest of the world, not the nipple ring but the reaction and lawsuits).

Earlier this year, Shadows of the Federation built our own station in 2DWM-2 in Vale of the Silent. We might have since sold it on when we found 0.0 NC Sov holding wasn't for us (approximately 2 weeks before the Russians stomped through there and captured it), but that is OUR station and always will be, no matter if we sold it or if PL or RDF are sat in it currently. We built it through blood, sweat, tears, ISK and capital reps, it's ours! Ever looked closely at a 0.0 player built Minmatar outpost? Here is a screenshot I took after our egg became a station and we were furiously repping it. Yes, that is a neon "Girls" sign on the station!

Now look at the items in game that you can fill your cargo hold with. You have exotic dancers, you have prostitutes. These are all linked to missions, some involving pleasure domes or pleasure gardens or pleasure palaces or something along those lines. I think we can all imagine what is supposed to go on in them. Please CCP, when you properly release Incarna rather than a 3D walking station menu, can we dock at those structures, pleeeeeease... :)

However sex in Eve is all fairly low-key. Some might say appropraite for a game with a PEGI 12 cert like Eve Online. Of course "Online interactions" are not covered in that cert and if you looked at SoTF's corp chat you'd probably go for a R18 rating. However, does a game with an average player age of 31 need a PEGI 12 cert? Some movies have been know to have been re-edited when they sent it in for classification and they felt the classification awarded was too low and wanted the 18 certificate for it. So they made it a bit more naughty and sent it back. Why? Because the "18" certificate will sell more copies than a "15" certificate when targetting certain audiences.

Have you read the Eve novels? Eve: The Empyrean Age has Zero-G bonking and of course that Amarrian Chamberlain who is a perverted as they come. Eve: The Burning Life has some low key references and tongue action. All in all, very low key again.

So generally CCP, in my honest opinion, has not expoited sex for sales.... the silly sods!

Have other games? Absolutely. So why not Eve? Is Iceland a prudish nation? Think of some of the games that have sex or use sex to sell copies of the game...

Who has played Mass Effect and after seeing the "sex scene" replayed the game as the female Commander Sheppard just to get back to that part for some girl-on-girl action? (I didn't, I just YouTube'd it when I heard about it)

Anyone played the original EverQuest? Remember the box cover (remember when games came in cardboard boxes?) of the Ruins of Kunark. Partically dressed female Elf in chains!

Age of Conan. Well that certainly has plenty of, erm, plenty. From the character costumes to running quests for the local brothel complete with "proffesional" ladies!

Any Japanese styled fighting game - Dead or Alive, Bayonetta etc etc

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Need I say anything?

Lara Croft!!!

From what I can tell I'm pretty average in game. 35 years old (4 years above the actually average age of an Eve Online player), male, married etc. So why doesn't CCP pander to our two-track minds? Two-track? Yes, Eve players (males anyway) have two-track minds. Your average male has a mind like a railway at a coal fired power plant, one-track and dirty. Your average male Eve player also thinks about Eve a lot during the day too!

Sex and Sci Fi go together, they always have. Whilst there are some lovely ladies out there who enjoy sci-fi (come back Eelis!!!) it is a male dominated genre. Think of the movies and series.

How many Star Trek fans instanainiously combusted during DS9 when Jadzia Dax swapped spit with Dr. Lenara Kahn (I did have to Google that, not such a Trekie I knew her name)

Lexx - A sci-fi series not only named after a corp mate in SoTF who gets so much of the subject matter he doesn't get to play Eve much, but also, according to Wikipedia, a sci-fi series with so much of the subject matter in it's unsuitable for Americans??? "Not originally produced for a US network, the series features more sexual innuendo and nudity than audiences in the United States are generally accustomed to seeing in non-premium programming. The Sci Fi Channel purchased the series....."

Six in Battlestar Gallactica

Seven of Nine in Voyager

Mila Jovovich in The Fifth Element

Natasha Henstridge in Species

Leela and Amy Wong in Fururama

Jamie Bamber in BSG (Eelis Kiy INSISTED this was included)

To be honest I could go on forever. Think about how many sci-fi films and shows feature more sex than Eve Online. I mean even the original Star Trek series has more. Kirk was either shooting the aliens or kissing them.

So what can CCP do? What will they do?

Will they sex-up the NeX store? To be honest I personally feel those skirts are way too long and those heels way too short!

Will we get see-through stuff. See the quality of our graphics engine! ;)

Lingerie! Will underwear be availible on the NeX store. Why not? TBH I garrentee they'll sell more sets of stockings and suspenders than monocles!

Will we get Glenn Quagmire inspired furniture for the CQ? Personally I want a heart-shaped waterbed with leopard print sheets! Bow-chica-wow-wow.

But most of all I hope we get that bloody door open and get down to the bar in Minmatar and Gallente stations. We want podium and pole dancers!!!!

OK that's just me thinking aloud, and might be a bit too much. But I think there is a middle ground and I'm sure CCP are looking into it. In the CSM minutes it was noted that there was call for feti...., erm, specialist clothing, in Incarna.

I have CQ turned off currently. I turned it on for 10 minutes yesterday to take some screenshots but that was the first time since about 2 days after launch. All the CQ is currently is a good looking, but inefficient, station menu.

However, put the right clothing in the NeX store, open up the stations and give us access to the bars, put some entertainment NPC's in there, and I might very well turn it back on! Of course, blowing up peoples ships will always be my number 1 priority in game. But whilst waiting for the fleet to form or just after it disbands for the night, or may be even whilst waiting out a GCC timer... I'd go for a bit of T&A down the station bar!

Don't force us to use Incarna CCP, give us some bloody good reasons to!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Last night we had a birthday roam for one of our directors in Shadows of the Federation, Tekitha.

Tek is not only one of our Directors but also a foul-mouthed FC. Think "Bricktop" from Snatch. I really do expect him to add "Feed 'em to the pigs Errol" after each order!

Anyway, the drink is flowing, we are forming up and having a laugh on comms when out CEO presents a birthday present for Tek. A nice new Machariel that we all chipped in for to say thanks for all Tek's hard work. Suddenly the HAC/Recon gang is out of the window and we've got half a dozen Mac's, T3's, Logi's, HAC's and Recons ready for the off. A rather expensive fleet for a drunken roam....

We head out and Tek needs to go AFK 1 minute to visit the little capsuleers room so docks up leaving us on a gate. A solo Machariel jumps into us. Half the fleet aggress' and the other half jump through the gate as the Mac burns back including me. We point him the other side and he burns back to gate again. He manages to jump out in low structure. AHHHHHHH! The half the fleet that aggressed him on the otherside finish him off.

So we head on. Unfortunately one of our members who shall remain nameless, suffers major wife/girlfriend aggro. He's in a pickle as no station in system and in his Mac when GCC. He jumps nextdoor where he see's there is a station. Unfortunately it's a 0.5 security status :( So that's the second expensive ship lost due to wife-aggro this week. Anyway his drunken corp mates help by suggesting way's she could make it up to him involving him, her and her female best friend. The "specialist movie" producer, Ben Dover, has been in contact and has offered 3 SoTF mates contracts as writers on his next production after reading the fleet chat log!

Next few jumps we pop a frigate and a Assault Ship.

Next we find a small gate camp in Angatalie. A Nighthawk with a few BC. We try and get them but they warp off. No station in system so we "Benny Hill" after the command ship. We cannot catch him after several attempts so form up on the out-gate. He lands at the location 50km off. Now usually he'd be OK, however when the fleet was upgraded from "Normal" to "Hideously Expensive" I swapped into a Tengu and decided to stick a faction point on it. With a booster in fleet, faction point and overheat - 50km is nicely doable. He burns but we are all faster than a Nighthawk. He's neuted dry and everyone comes to whore on the killmail.

We check the usually busy systems of Heydieles and Old Man Star which are very quiet. Tek passes the time by holding mini competitions giving 10m ISK prizes to the best boobie pic or best arse pic posted in fleet chat in one minute time frames. I cannot click any of them, it's soooooooo unfair.

We did have a bit of a discussion about "Why is Old Man Star called Old Man Star?". I pointed out to the corp that most should remember as that was a puzzle in my own birthday roam I did a few years ago. Then Gallactica started going on about the disco at my wedding (yes, my CEO came to my wedding!). Slightly off track Gall. Anyway, want to know why OMS is called OMS? Check the story here, it is a good read.

In Tama we find a Hurricane to pop and then in Hirri we bump into our old adversary from the Caldari Militia Gunnyt31. Now usually it would be "Point that 'Cane" but for an old friend like Gunny it was "IT'S GUNNY POINT HIM! POINT HIM! SOMEONE ***** GET HIM!!!!!!"

Our scout finds a few in Hallenen looking like they want to play including a Pilgrim and Proteus on the station. Tek gets them agressed, we warp in just as Tek is starting to move from "Erm, I'm getting slightly worried here guys" to "HELP MEEEEEEEEEE!" We land, pop the Pilgrim, primary the Proteus and they undock an Archon. Sorry guys.... just a little too late in undocking that carrier!

A covert ops and a stealth bomber also say hello to "our little friend" in the same system. Bad time to undock TBH.

By this time it's late. It's after 3am for me, 2am for Lock in Eastern Europe, 1am for our Western Europe chums and midnight for the UK contingent. SoTF is about 60% ish UK, 30% Europe and a few scattered across the planet. So Tek asks who needs to log off in the next hour and most the fleet X's.

After some moaning, we head back towards home. Unfortunately the fleet gets a bit split up and a Mac decides to go it alone and jumps into an Amarr gate camp. Our only loss of the night :(

On the return journey a couple of Hurricanes choose the wrong time to be in our path but we never saw a single decent fleet all night.

However what we did get on the way back is the most ironic chat I think I've ever had. Our CEO was taking some flak as he needed to go to bed as the kids would be jumping on him early. What followed was a deep and meaningful "conversation" why he was a pussy and the average man lives for 75 years and as most of us are already half-way there you should enjoy yourself, live everyday as if it was your last and make the absolute most of your time on Earth. Oh and kids get in the way of that. A huge drunken debate was then held between the "Live everyday as if it was your last and party hard" brigade verses the "Home and Family" lot.

In the same way as I believe those playing Eve should be able to play how they like, I also believe people should live the way they like. Me and the wife don't have kids and are not planning any. That's our choice, but I never have a go at anyone who does. And the drunken "argument" was hilarious to me. I say argument, it was a drunken conversation really last all the way home. I finally logged just before 4am. Just hearing in corp chat as I write this that the convo went on for hours.

Sorry Lock, but you lost the argument as I logged. I'm calling it.

Your argument was "enjoy yourself to the MAX, live everyday as if it was your last and make the absolute most of your time on Earth and kids get in the way of that". Yes, normally someone could make a great argument for that cause, but, and it is a HUGE but..... you yourself are at home...... on a Friday night...... playing pretend internet spaceships with the rest of us sad geeks until the early hours. :)

Summary:-

Losses to NPC's - 1

Losses to Players - 1

Bottles drunk - Lots

Kills - 17

Fleets engaged - 0

Old "Friends" Popped - 1

Total jumps - 50+

Distance from eye to screen of our CEO after 3 bottles of red - 2 inches

Open eyes on CEO after those 3 bottles - 1

Lolz had - Many

30 minute long discussions on lifestyle choices - 1

All-in-all a good little roam, no real epic battle but excellent banter on comms, good drink and some kills.

Thanks to Tek for FC'ing, to Gall for getting so drunk to add as constant source of comedy, same props to Lock out and the rest of SoTF who turned out in force in a fleet of pure awesome-sauce.

Friday, July 15, 2011

How do you see Eve? Reading through the last CSM minutes something caught my eye. The word "Hobby". That really got me thinking. Is Eve Online a game, or is it a hobby. Can you class a single game as your hobby?

Is there a difference between a game and hobby?

Wikipedia states a hobby is:-....a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.

And then highlights "Games" as a type of Hobby.

"Games
A game is a structured or semi-structured recreational activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment (although sometimes for physical or vocational training). A goal that the players try to reach and a set of rules concerning what the players can or cannot do create the challenge and structure in a game, and are thus central to its definition. Known to have been played as far back as prehistoric times, games are generally distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration. Because a wide variety of activities are enjoyable, numerous types of games have developed. What creates an enjoyable game varies from one individual to the next. Age, understanding (of the game), intelligence level, and personality are factors that determine what games a person enjoys. Depending on these factors, people vary the number and complexity of objectives, rules, challenges, and participants to increase their enjoyment. Games generally involve mental and/or physical stimulation. Many games help develop practical skills and serve as exercise or perform an educational, simulation or psychological role.

Many children like to play outdoor games that involve physical activity such as cops and robbers and hide and go seek. Adults may play games, such as in the form of card games, board games, and in recent times, video games. Some additional games that adults would play are darts and dice games."

So playing computer games is a hobby (according to Wikipedia), and plenty of people will admit to that. But would you say that your hobby is Eve Online?

I'm happy to say gaming is my hobby. But there is no way I would call 'Call of Duty' my hobby. I do enjoy that game and I'll happily plonk down in front of the XBox and shoot some people for an hour. But CoD is not my hobby, I don't see it that way. It's a game and gaming is one of my hobbies. Minecraft, although I haven't played this for a month or two, when I first got it I played it a lot. Did I ever class Minecraft as my hobby? No. So is Eve Online a hobby for me as CCP suggest it could be or just one of the games I play for my hobby of gaming?

Trying to compare Eve to my other hobbies and I do draw some similarities. Take drinking for instance..... oh, what? That's not a hobby? OK, how about Scuba diving then? I'm a PADI Rescue Diver and a BSAC Dive Leader and Open Water Instructor. I have dived all over from the cold UK to the Carribean, Egypt, Maldives and UAE.

Exhilaration/Thrill Factor -

Hobby: Kuredu Express dive site - Sat on the back of the boat, lean backwards and see blue sky for 1 second before a splash and you are underwater. You are weightless and hovering effortlessly. You sink 30m down and the current is ripping through the channel. You feel like you are flying at speed, you even do the "Superman in-flight pose", 2m long grey reef sharks cruise past effortlessly. You grab a rock to stop, the water is thundering past you and you have difficulty holding on. Your heart is racing and you have a smile a mile wide under that mask.

Eve Online: You are sat there in space in your expensive space ship. You are in low structure and your mods are almost burnt out. Next to you is the wreck of an equally expensive ship with some nice loot inside. That was one close 1v1 and you only just did it, thank god for that shield booster. Your hands are shaking and you have a smile a mile wide.

A Photo I took of a Grey Reef Shark on Kuredu Express. Can you see the blur caused by the speed of the particles in the water!

Money -

Hobby: I spend a lot of money on my hobby. A typical dive costs £50 and the gear has set me back probably a grand with a hundred on annual servicing each year.

Eve Online: In the last year, with a Vent Server and three subscriptions I've spent about £700. Actually I've spent more cash on Eve than diving! Now that is a surprise to me.

Time (days) -

Hobby: Dive trips are arranged and set in the calendar.

Eve Online: Important ops are put in the calendar and excuses made to the wife why we have to be back early/cannot go out that night/need to leave late etc (Never mentioning Eve, needs to be something else)

Time (Input) -

Hobby: The move to the Middle East has reduced the diving I've got in but before the move it was at least 2-4 days per month.

Eve Online: I shudder to think. 4 hours a day, double that at weekends. Christ!!!!

Preparing Time -

Hobby: Cleaning kit, servicing, packing and if I was planning the trip I'd need a couple of hours to consult maps, select dive sites, check tides and currents. Probably 2 hours prep before a normal dive trip. 5-6 hours if I was Dive Leader.

Eve Online: Again, fairly scary. I'm writing this right now for a start. I've been looking at Aura on my Android Phone (the "other" Capsuleer app if you're not an iPhone iFan iBoi) looking at skill plans. Later I need to do some EFT warrioring. I'm posting and replying on the Shadows of the Federation forums. I'm thinking about Eve now at work.

Social Side -

Hobby: You've been on the boat all day with your buddies. You've got back to the B&B and washed the kit off. Had a shower and change and now wandering down to the Chain Locker pub in Falmouth harbour for a few pints, a bar meal and a laugh and chat with the other 11 members of the club until late.

Eve Online: It's some how 4am, you're trollied, and that story one of your corp mates just told you all is making vodka come out of your nose due to laughing. There are 30 of you on voice comms, mostly drunk having a right laugh whilst in fleet.

So, can Eve Online be classed as a hobby give the above? I say, now I've carefully looked through the above points, no, not really.

Eve Online is not a game
Eve Online is not a hobby
Eve Online is a minor obsession!!!!

Again a slightly older post I was about to make on the alliance website but never happened as we split....

OK, so in a previous blog post I talked about good vs bad and how going pirate in ShadowWolves was a issue for me.

A few weeks down the line and I'm officially a pirate. Fully paid up member for the "Shoot me on sight, I'm red!" brigade.

So how did I get here? Basically I stuck to what I said in my previous post. I've not hi-sec ganked anyone, I've avoided podding people, but I have shot everything I can in low-sec. This has included industrials (seriously, wtf are you doing hauling soil around our area!), shuttles and noob ships along with all the more "fighty" combat ships. Low-Sec does not have CONCORD and therefore players expect that it is unsafe, I'm not saying hi-sec IS safe, it's not, but what I'm saying is when you jump into lo-sec you get that nice little message telling you the facts. Nobody should moan if they get blown up in lo-sec, you have been warned by the game itself.

So how am I finding being a dirty piwate? I've not had half the issues I was expecting. I'm justifying my baddie status with the lo-sec thing. You're in a -0.4 or below system, then these 720mm RF EMP shells that are streaking towards your ship should come as no surprise. You are surprised? Well tough. Pay attention to that little message that pops up when you jump 0.5 > 0.4 that say's it's unsafe. Oh and thanks for the loot it was very.... WTF? SOIL????

It's weird how different games have different perceptions of good vs bad. In Call of Duty do I hesitate firing on the "other side". Of course not, it would be the most pointless game ever if that was the case. But that's one side vs the other, black and white, it is red verses blue. In Eve there are really no sides unless you are in one of the militias or have an active war dec. How many "sides" are there in Eve if you think about it? Thousands? Although you could argue just two currently, players vs CCP over monoclegate :)

Also when that opposing ship explodes, they person piloting it does not "respawn". He has lost it. Might have been nothing, might have been weeks worth of carebear grinding to get the ISK for that fit. Call of Duty this game is not!

Also I've not had any real tears from my victims. Whether it's been a shuttle, a noob ship, an industrial or a combat ship. The worst I've had is "Nooooooo... my noob ship" in local and one convo about me popping their noob ship again. Why do people get so angry about their noob ships but the more expensive ones are gf's?

The biggest adjustment is those sodding gate and station guns. It really does bring a new element to the game when you need to factor in the otherside might be getting a free 300dps extra. Getting a ship and fitting to tank the guns is not the issue, the problem is those fits tend to be light on DPS. It's a whole new balancing act to contend with. Being a pirate really does bring a new element to the game. It's amazing how many games make up Eve Online.

So what now? Well I suppose next thing is ransoming pods. Apparently that's "the done thing" for your average pirate-about-space. Oh and sitting on a gate as a red. See what agresses me rather than me doing all the aggressing and upsetting the space fuzz (aka CONCORD).

We ganked a poor pilot outside our station the other day. He had a bit of a moan in local about us "ganging" up on him. Then one of SoTF did mention he had seven corp mates in station.

We then started talking on comms about they must all be "person spinning" in the captains quarters. To which someone replies what if CCP removed the undock button when you are in the CQ and you had to physically run to the pod gantry to be able to undock.

There was much laughing about how that would result in panicking and the like when the stations are fully open (come on CCP, pull your finger out. I want bars with exotic dancers NOW!) and someone screaming for help results in all these avatars running down the corridor towards the lift.

That got me thinking of my first PC space game which had a cinematic of pilots running down a corridor to their ship. 21 years ago! I specifically got my first PC, a 286, for this game. Yes I had Elite on my Spectrum 48k with rubber keyboard, the original "Eve". And before that Star Wars on the Atari 2600. But this was the first PC game I ever had....

... and the best thing about it. You never got the black screen of nothingness when undocking ;)

A while ago, when SoTF left faction war and Nisuwa to head out on a new journey, Eelis Kiy all round sultry voiced minx and author of the blog Where the Frack is my Ship? did a little bit of "fan fiction". Very good read and I recommend you have a look at it here. TBH you need to read that first or my "reply" doesn't make as much sense!

Drackarn slowly opened his eyes. His quarters were dimly lit which was a godsend as his head was pounding. He tried to raise himself up but found a woman's arm draped across his chest. He slumped back down trying to remember what happened the night before and more importantly who was in his bed with him. He glanced either side of him and was greeted with an identical image of a Gallente pleasure girl each side of him.

"Mmmm wonder how how much these two cost me?" he thought. "May be that shiny new Bhaalgorn would have to wait." Still, a waste of money for something he didn't remember.

Drack glanced up at the holoprojector and the red light showed it was still recording discreetly.

"Ahhhh at least I'll be able to remember in that way"

He carefully moved the arms pinning him down and slipped out of bed. The two girls stirred and cuddled up to each other without waking. Carefully Drack picked his way though the littered floor of discarded clothes and empty bottles, careful to not make too much noise. His travel cases were lined up side-by-side by the door, he knew packing the morning after would have been a bad idea so he'd done it the day before.

The food dispenser made a hum as it delivered his chosen beverage. The bright green concoction smelt foul. Drackarn had been given the formula by the bar keeper at the Nisuwa State Protectorate Station. It had been in chemical formula format when he received it which was unusual when sharing recipe's. When he asked why, the barman had simply stated "Cus you really don't want to know what's in it!"

Drackarn sipped the drink and felt refreshed. The headache eased almost instantly. He was sure there were illicit substances in the drink, but didn't care as it did the job so well. When you feel like you've got a gravaton smartbomb going off in your head, it was the only cure he knew.

With a clearer mind the events of the previous evening started to surface. Shadows of the Federation were leaving for a new home and he and his corp mates wanted to make sure they had a good final night in the station that had been their home for so long. The preparations had been made the week before to ensure the bar was over stocked and that "special company" had been arranged and shuttled in for all that wanted it, or in fact didn't want it. A smile appeared on Drackarn's face as he remembered Marcus the male escort hitting on their CEO Gallactica who was too drunk to realise who he really was and just thought he was being really friendly. Drackarn had added Marcus to the list as a surprise for Eelis. When Eelis hadn't shown up for the party he was about to have marched down to her quarters and drag her to the party. Luckily, just before he had he checked the station manifest. Rashmika was showing up as a guest. His ship was docked in hanger 34-D but Drackarn knew that he wouldn't be there and that Eelis wouldn't be needing the services of Marcus tonight!

He entered the bathroom and shook his head. In the bath was an unconsious Lexx and two of the male Minmatar dancers from the night before. Drack backed out slowly and closed the door to let them wake in their own time. Truth be told his hand had hovered above the shower controls, but given how he felt the morning after he couldn't bring himself to do it. He wasn't being nice, he was just worried he might laugh too much and throw up.

The girls in his bed were still fast asleep and the message light on his data pad was blinking. He brought the message up and it was from the hanger bay. His hanger had been packed and his Chimera class carrier was ready for launch.

3 long jumps in a carrier full of his best ships, modules and ammo. Not something he was looking forward to given how he was still feeling.

Outside his quarters the pre-ordered carriage droid was waiting. He loaded his cases onto the rack and hit the complete switch. The roid sped off down the corridor.

Drackarn picked up his grab bag which was the last of his belongings and looked back into the room. He smiled thinking of all that had happened in those quarters over the past year.

He walked out of the room for the last time.... hitting the remote shower start up on his way out.

About Me

COPYRIGHT NOTICEEVE Online and the EVE logo are the registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights are reserved worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. EVE Online, the EVE logo, EVE and all associated logos and designs are the intellectual property of CCP hf. All artwork, screenshots, characters, vehicles, storylines, world facts or other recognizable features of the intellectual property relating to these trademarks are likewise the intellectual property of CCP hf. CCP hf. has granted permission to Sand, Cider and Spaceships. to use EVE Online and all associated logos and designs for promotional and information purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not in any way affiliated with, Sand, Cider and Spaceships. CCP is in no way responsible for the content on or functioning of this website, nor can it be liable for any damage arising from the use of this website.